JimenaPulse
About Jimena de la Frontera, the province of Cadiz and Spain as a whole, focused on this small village in the mountainsArchive for EDITORIAL
LOCAL CENSORSHIP?
Prospero received the following e-mail this morning. If you followed this blog during the last music festival (see article and photos here), you will know that a documentary was being filmed at the time, in which Yours Truly was happy to assist. Directed by Juan Manuel Díaz Lima, it included interviews with several local residents, Spanish and expats, and some very interesting local scenes. Given the director’s comments below, it might appear that the documentary is being subjected to censorship of some kind, which is a serious allegation. Should this situation persist, we will make it our business to have it premiered in Jimena with or without the support of our local authorities, probably in the New Year.
Ya está el documental terminado, por fin. Tan sólo contarte que se estrenará en Madrid el día 14 de Diciembre, el lugar está todavía por especificar. Que sepas que si te animas estás invitado al preesteno. Todavía queda pendiente el estreno en Jimena pero no sé qué pasa que vuestro alcalde no está por la labor… Nada para que sepas y escribas lo que quieras en tu blog. (…) un abrazo y espero verte pronto.
Translation: The documentary is finished at last. Just to tell you that it is to be premiered in Madrid on December 14th at a place yet to be specified. If you feel like it, come up for the preview. The premiere for Jimena is still pending but your Mayor doesn’t seem to be up for it… Just so that you know and write whatever you like on your blog. (…) All the best and hope to see you soon.
Further to the above: At 7.40 pm this evening Prospero had a call from our Mayor, Pascual Collado, who assured him, Prospero, that he, the Mayor, had heard nothing from the documentary’s director and was surprised by the matter, adding that he could see no problem in having a premiere in Jimena. Prospero gave the Mayor the director’s e-mail address so they could come to some agreement about when and where. So we’ll just have to wait a little longer to see it here. No problem. Watch this space.
JIMENAPULSE & bBay ON PAPER
In Europa Sur this morning, a note about JimenaPulse and bBay. It reads as follows:
“I WANT TO GIVE BACK SOME OF WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED FROM JIMENA”
Of an English mother and Argentine father, Alberto Bullrich considers himself a ‘Russian salad’, alluding to his mixture, which he does with laughter. He owes his love for Jimena, where two of his children live, to his mother, who lived there for 32 years. He says that what he likes most about the village is its people and what he dislikes most is the incivility of some. Alberto has opened a new Internet website the only objective of which is charity. That is the idea behind bBay, which is different from others in that it is completely free, although a contribution is solicited to benefit La Estrella, the local handicapped association. Bullrich is adamant that he does not intervene in any transaction between buyer and seller.
Alberto is bilingual and understands that there are many foreign residents of Jimena who do not learn Spanish and do not participate in social activities in the community. Of course, he is grateful for how well his mother and he were received in the village. ‘The only thing I’m doing is to give back a little of the much my mother and I have received here,’ says the best-known translator of Jimena.
CAPTION: Alberto has English and Hispanic blood. Speaker of both languages, he has dedicated himself to translation but never stops creating projects that make Jimena bigger.
EDITORIAL
JimenaPulse has traditionally not become involved in Spanish national politics and rarely in the local variety. Indeed, this is probably the first time we have done so since we began this blog in March this year. What prompts us to do so now is the behaviour of some opposition political leaders faced with a Supreme Court decision in the case against the terrorists that wrought havoc in Madrid on March 11 2004 (known in Spanish as 11-M).
Without getting into too much detail, of which there is a great deal, one of the court’s findings was that ETA, the Basque nationalist terrorist organization, had nothing to do with the series of bombings that killed 191 and injured over 2000 on the capital’s railway system. That, of course, was the conclusion initially postulated by José María Aznar’s PP government, in power at the time, and for which no evidence has been found after 21 months of trials and investigation. Political analysts the world over have been almost unanimous in saying that, had the bombs been pinned on ETA, it would have favoured the PP in national elections that were due to take place three days later, on March 14th, because the then government had dealt several severe blows to that terrorist organization; had the tragedy been put – as it has – at the hands of Islamist reactionaries, the electorate would have concluded that it was as a direct result of Spain’s involvement in Iraq, a decision by the Aznar government that was extremely unpopular. The PP’s reaction, rather than the bombings themselves, cost them dearly: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the PSOE were swept into government in a near landslide.
The PP has never got over the defeat and, with all the evidence out in the open three years later, is behaving like a child caught stealing an apple and denying it while still holding the apple. In a shameful lack of courage the PP’s present leader, Mariano Rajoy, and his underlings, Miguel Ángel Acebes, the party’s General Secretary and Minister of the Interior and the Police (equivalent to Home Secretary) under Aznar when the bombings took place, and Eduardo Zaplana, presently the PP’s chief spokesperson and also a minister under Aznar at that time, will still not admit to having been wrong about the bombers in 2004. It is politics at its very worst.
There is an expression in Spanish that sums up the situation: Es de hombres admitir su error, which can be loosely translated as ‘A true man admits his mistakes’. At the time of writing, there doesn’t seem to be a man among them.
(A comment from an assiduous Spanish reader points out that the expression mentioned above does not sound right and suggests another: Es de sabios rectificar, which translates into ‘A wise man corrects his mistakes’. Therefore, an alternative last sentence would read: ‘At the time of writing, there does not seem to be a wise man among them.’ Either or both endings will do nicely.)
JimenaPulse 